Once the gift-giving was over, Sir Scabby took the burlap that had covered our new weapons and draped the pieces in a crisscrossed formation over the pile of heads and hides at the edge of his camp. He then broke down the wooden crate and built what looked like a teepee over the pile. After packing away or piling up any evidence he’d ever been there he took a flint out of one of the half dozen pouches at his waist. With a few well-placed sparks, he had an impressive, if not foul-smelling fire raging.

“Won’t that attract unwanted attention, my lord,” Aconitum asked, appearing chaotic-nervous.

“Better the attention beest hither, than whither we're headed,” Sir Scabby replied. “And unless thou art joining us, thee should be’est returning to the castle, post-haste.”

The warlock offered a facial expression that looked like a kalanchoe stalking its prey, yet I’m pretty sure it was meant to be a smile. He should seriously stick to frowning or poker faces. “As you say, my lord.” Turning to the rest of us, he said, “You’ll get what’s coming to you when you return with the prince, unharmed.” That completely not creepy, non-foreshadowy speech given, he darted off into the woods like the filthy, crazed murder-hobo I suspected him to be.

Cool, as innocent as a newborn baby, laughed as Aconitum scurried off like a rat into a maze. “Heh. He was nice, but he could use a bath. And a toothbrush. Maybe a pedicure, too. Hey, when we get our rewards, we should all chip in and get him a gift certificate for the kingdom day spa!”

Scalar hefted his huge axe over his shoulder and hung it across his back. He’d fashioned one of the kalanchoe hides into a makeshift bandoleer. He used an additional hide to make twin axe-holsters, which hung loosely from his belt, one on each hip. Scalar was handy with the hides, that was for sure. “Please, Cool, my dear friend, take no offense when I say, hell no. That stinky culo is the king’s advisor. If he wishes to spend a day cleansing his body to make himself look and smell like a respectable creature, then I am quite sure the king would be happy to accommodate him.”

Sir Scabby laughed heartily at Scalar’s response, giving one of Santa’s guffaws a run for its money. “Friend Minotaur, thee feeleth as most of the kingdom doth feel. T’is a mystery wherefore the king alloweth Aconitum to remain at his side. His loyalty and motives has't at each moment been in question amongst the knights of the royal court.”

Cool snaked his head around the trees, his neck winding like a creeping laurentii, and whispered into Sir Scabby’s ear. “He’s not a Minotaur, dude. He’s a cursed prince. He just looks like a Minotaur.”

Both Cool and the knight glanced back at Scalar, the revelation burning between them. Sir Scabby whispered back. “Forsooth he doest. I shalt be’est more careful in the days to come.”

Scalar snorted and plodded into the woods to await directions and grumbled. “I can hear you whispering.”

~

The witches’ lair, cave, tent, teepee, whatever they lived in, was in a region north of what we’d always considered north. Like, so far north, no one from Capitula ever ventured there. It was, as it turned out, beyond the land of the dragons, a place no one ever returned from. We, in our haste, um, my haste actually, agreed to go. Pharaoh offered more than one ‘I told you so’ or in his case, ‘Me did tell yuh suh’, as we made our way into the lands to the west of Candytuft.

We’d briefly considered going directly through Candytuft, but the risk of the queen, or one of her many handmaidens or advisors, seeing Sir Scabby was too great. We chose to circumvent the castle, and everything in its vicinity, by taking the western route.

I know what you’re thinking. What? The western trail? Are you out of your mind?

And yes, you’re right, taking the western trail was going to be dangerous. But think about it. Facing...